With the advent of technology and the prevalence of online shopping, the term eCommerce fraud has become more general and more vague. Under it, there are numerous types of categories and attacks. Of these, none are more insidious than Account Takeover, aka ATO. It’s more difficult to catch, and the ensuing damages for both merchants and unsuspecting customers go beyond just stolen goods.
When someone becomes a victim of ATO, they lose more than money and login credentials — they lose confidence. Product Manager and Head of ATO at Riskified Alon Shem-Tov said the psychological effects of ATO incidents can be just as costly as the financial aspects.
Many people don’t realize, said Shem-Tov, that ATO is not just about the moment when a fraudster gains control of a consumer’s account and uses it to make a purchase. It’s about the series of events leading up to that as well as a long tail of consequences and mitigations following the incident.
Thus, he said, any company or product claiming to solve the problem of ATO fraud must start at the beginning of the relationship between the customer and the brand (proactive) and follow through on the back end of the incident (reactive). Riskified provides resources for companiesthat are unsure how to do this, he said.
In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Shem-Tov outlined what businesses, their customers and their security partners need to know about the full lifecycle of an ATO.